Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Hopkins - North America

Facebook Visitors Come Back Again and Again

2010-03-18T05:37:46Z

A few weeks ago when I posted my blog entry about Facebook being the largest news reader I received a few comments and emails noting that visitors aren't as valuable if they don't come back. Advertisers and retailers need some assurance that visitors will return again and again.

Hitwise data indicate that visitors from Facebook.com are more loyal to News and Media websites than are visitors from News.Google.com. In particular, among the top 5 Print Media websites in the week ending March 6, 2010, 78% of Facebook.com users were returning visitors compared to 67% from Google News. The figures are almost identical for Broadcast Media, with a 77% returning rate for Facebook.com compared to 64% for Google News.

I compiled this data using Hitwise clickstream data, and in particular the metric that shows new versus returning visitors for websites. The metric reports the percentage of visits by source (i..e Google.com, Yahoo.com news.google.com, Facebook.com, etc) that were new versus returning. New visitors are defined as those that haven't visited the site within the past 30 days.

The following chart shows the average returning rate among the top 5 News and Media - Print websites and the top 5 News and Media - Broadcast websites. The third bar, "Average" shows the average returning rate for that website to offer a benchmark. The chart illustrates that among this sample of News and Media websites, Facebook users are more likely to be repeat visitors than those coming from Google News or the average for the site.

To offer one example, 81% of visits to CNN.com in the week to March 6, 2010 were returning visitors while 84% of visitors to CNN.com that came from Facebook.com were returning visitors and 72% from Google News were returning visitors.

I've been encouraged by some readers to include Google.com in this series. In most cases, Google.com is the #1 source of traffic to these sites. Interestingly, visitors from Google are less likely to be returning visitors than average for either Google News or Facebook. This reinforces the long term value to News and Media organisations of working with the likes of Google News and Facebook. With recent Pew Research showing that Newspapers have seen ad revenue fall 26% during the year and 43% over the past three years, understanding where to find loyal readers is becoming increasingly important.

Twitter and News and Media Websites

2010-03-16T16:43:24Z

A couple of weeks ago, I did a follow up post on my blog entry, "Facebook Largest News Reader?". The entry illustrated that Facebook users prefer Broadcast Media while Google News readers prefer Print Media. Several readers requested that I add Twitter to the mix.

Twitter.com accounted for 0.14% of upstream visits to News and Media sites last week. (Note that we are measuring website visits from Twitter.com only.) This compares to 3.64% from Facebook and 1.27% from Google News. Facebook was the #3 source of visits to News and Media websites last week. Google News was the #11 site and Twitter.com ranked #39.

Twitter has enjoyed explosive growth, nearly tripling share of US Internet visits year over year last week. However, News and Media companies have not seen similar growth rates in upstream traffic from Twitter. Upstream visits from Twitter.com to News and Media sites have grown by 54% over the past year. Compare this to upstream visits to All Categories of websites, for which visits from Twitter.com have more than doubled (138%).

So where are all those Twitter.com visitors going? As illustrated in the chart below, the majority (60%) are going to Social Networks and Entertainment sites (mainly photography and video sharing sites).

For those interested in which News and Media sites receive the most traffic from Twitter. Here is a table showing the top 10 downstream News and Media sites from Twitter.com last week.

Facebook Users Prefer Broadcast Media

2010-03-01T14:04:48Z

A couple of weeks ago, I posted an entry about Facebook becoming the largest news reader. Facebook does send more traffic to News and Media sites than Google News but looking more closely at the data, I noticed that the two sites send traffic to a very different list of News and Media websites. The following table starts to tell the story, showing the top 10 News and Media websites visited after Facebook and Google News last week.

These two lists are very different. In particular, notice the preponderance of print media brands among the top downstream sites from Google News.

A larger proportion of Facebook's News and Media traffic is directed toward Broadcast Media websites compared with Google News. The following chart illustrates this point nicely. The chart shows upstream visits to Broadcast Media websites from Facebook and Google News over the past year.

Compare that to Print Media websites where Google News, despite being a much smaller site overall, still sends almost as much traffic to Print Media websites as does Facebook.

Digging even deeper, let's look at a few individual websites. The Wall Street Journal last week received 10.37% of its US visits from Google News compared to only 1.41% from Facebook. The New York Times similarly received more traffic from Google News than from Facebook (5.21% compared to 2.96% of upstream visits). Fox News and CNN by contrast received more traffic from Facebook than Google News. Fox News received 5.50% from Facebook and 1.18% from Google News while CNN received 5.92% from Facebook and 1.77% from Google News.

But why the difference? Do Facebook users prefer Broadcast Media? I ran a correlation analysis to try to figure out if the amount of traffic Facebook sends a site is related to the number of fans a brand has on its Facebook page. I found no such correlation. (For the analysis, I used downstream visits from Facebook to 23 top News and Media websites excluding news aggregators and compared this to the number of fans on the associated Facebook page.)

A colleague pointed me to an article in the New York Times suggesting that social networks are creating a water cooler effect and actually boosting viewership of broadcast media. Is Facebook the new water cooler and if so, how can print media capitalize on this trend?

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Facebook Largest News Reader?

2010-02-03T23:06:08Z

Marshall Kirkpatrick at Read Write Web had an interesting piece suggesting that Facebook could become the world's leading news reader. A recent Facebook company blog entry encouraged members to set up a news feed on Facebook. Kirkpatrick contends that with a few tweeks, Facebook could become a major distribution force for news content.

The last time I wrote about feed readers, Google Reader was just about to overtake Bloglines. That was in May 2008 - things have changed. Google Reader's growth continued (with some setbacks) until November 2009. Since then, visits have been dropping off. As Kirkpatrick mentions in his article, RSS readers never really reached "change-the-world feed-reading mass adoption."

Last week, Google Reader accounted for .01% of upstream visits to News and Media websites, about the same level as a year ago. Google News accounted for 1.39% of visits and Facebook 3.52%. The following chart illustrates the increase over the past year in visits from Facebook to News and Media websites, relative to Google News.

Facebook was the #4 source of visits to News and Media sites last week, after Google, Yahoo! and msn (see table below). News and Media is the #11 downstream industry after Facebook, receiving 3.69% of the social networking site's traffic. To offer a comparison, 6% of downstream traffic from Facebook went to Shopping and Classifieds last week and 6% to Business and Finance and 15% went to Entertainment websites (YouTube in particular). (Note, my colleague Heather Dougherty posted an entry on Social Networks and Retail traffic earlier this week).

Facebook could be a major disruptor to the News and Media category. And with the Wall Street Journal already publishing content to Facebook, perhaps the social network can avoid the run-ins that Google has suffered recently with Rupert Murdoch. We will continue to watch this space.

Nexus One Appealing to Wealthy. Purchase Intent Seems High.

2010-01-21T23:14:51Z

Google's Nexus One phone is a direct competitor to Apple's iPhone and the battle lines are being drawn. As illustrated below, the launch of the Nexus One attracted a great deal of excitement online, with searches for "nexus one" accounting for 1 in every 14,000 US Internet searches the week to January 9, 2010. As illustrated in the chart below, search volume settled down, and the share of searches for "nexus one" and "iphone" were even last week (week to January 16, 2010).

Purchase intent seems high. The #3 downstream website from Google Nexus One was Google Checkout, receiving 6% of downstream visits last week. The #4 downstream site was T-Mobile USA, the Nexus One carrier, receiving 3% of visits.

Wealthy Internet users seem most interested in the Nexus One. Hitwise Experian Mosaic Data reveals that 46% of visits to the Google Nexus One website were from the two wealthiest Lifestyle groups, Affluent America and Upscale Suburbia in the four weeks to January 16, 2010.

Finally, search marketers may take heart in knowing that Google is engaging in paid search marketing along with the rest of us. YouTube was among the top downstream websites (#4) from searches for "nexus one" last week with 31% of clicks going to paid listings.

Canadians Searching for Winter Escapes

2010-01-19T23:39:27Z

With no end in sight to winter and the charm of the ever-mounting snow banks wearing off, Canadians are turning to the web to book winter escapes. Visits to Travel websites have seen a sharp increase over the past two weeks. Canadian Internet visits were up 34% to Travel websites in the two weeks to 1/9/2009 (as illustrated in the chart below). Looking at the increase in visits to the Travel sub-categories we can better understand the drivers of that growth: visits to Travel Agencies were up 51%, Cruises websites 47%, and Destinations and Accommodations 45%.

Expedia.ca, which last week accounted for 12% of visits to Travel Agencies websites, experienced a 66% increase in visits over the past two weeks. Similarly, other leading Travel websites are seeing similar increases, including Air Canada up 54% in the past two weeks, West Jet up 69% and Trip Advisor up 67%.

Searches for last minute deals are proving popular, including "last minute vacations", "last minute travel" and "last minute flights". Popular destinations include Las Vegas, Disney World, Hawaii, Mexico and Jamaica. It's no coincidence that these are all warm and sunny destinations! At the same, we've seen an increase in searches that include the word "ski".

Canadian Holiday Shopping & Hot Products

2009-12-16T13:50:18Z

Canadians may celebrate Thanksgiving in October but similar seasonal trends are apparent in online holiday shopping. Canadian Internet visits to Shopping and Classifieds websites peaked two weeks ago, in the week ending November 27, 2009 - the same week as in the US. While Canadian Internet visits to retail websites reached a peak of 5.46% of all Internet visits in that week, in the US, visits were almost double the level seen in Canada, at 10.74% of US Internet visits.

Comparing visits to retail sub-categories last week (week to December 12, 2009) and eight weeks ago (week to October 17, 2009), the following categories have seen the biggest gains in visits:
- Flowers and Gifts +72%
- Appliances and Electronics +47%
- Video and Games +30%
- Department Stores +29%
- Computers +29%

In order to get an idea of the hot products this holiday season in Canada (my colleague Heather Dougherty posted hot US products last week), I looked at our Fast Moving Search Terms report for the twelve weeks to December 12, 2009 and compared it to the twelve weeks to October 17, 2009. This report shows the fastest moving search term, based on relative change, comparing those two twelve week periods. (Note the report can also be run with weekly data).

As you might expect, Zhu Zhu mania has also infected Canada. Other popular products include:
- Knifty Knitters
- Easy Bake Oven
- Jim Shore Figurines
- Skull Candy Headphones
- Sony eBook Reader
- Nintendo Wii and Wii Fit
- Vornado Foot Heater (With temperatures plummeting and snow banks climbing - this is perhaps unsurprising)
- Disney Karaoke

Fast Moving Search Terms offer ideas for search marketing campaigns and website content. Also, understanding the relative performance of categories in the lead up to Christmas can help firms benchmark success. We'll continue to watch this category in the final days for online shopping. In the meantime, happy shopping and happy holidays!

Playmobil Egypt - Hot Holiday Product

2009-12-16T13:15:39Z

The term "playmobil egypt" appeared #6 among the Fast Moving Search Terms sending visits to Shopping and Classifieds websites, entering the ranks of the most searched for products this holiday season. Searches for "playmobil egypt" soared from 0% a week ago to overtake searches for the "playmobil" brand name. This subject is near and dear to my heart as I have a little one who has recently fallen in love with Playmobil products.

The Egypt product is so hot this year that "playmobil pyramid" is the '#4 "playmobil" search term. Other popular Playmobil products include the airport and castle.

Last week, 53% of clicks on searches for "playmobil egypt" were on paid listings as retailers competed fiercely in the final days of online of holiday shopping. Amazon, uTOYpia and Toys 'R Us were the top three recipients of visits from the term.

Of course, Playmobil products aren't nearly as popular as Zhu Zhu Pets, which ranked as the #8 search term sending visits to our Toys and Hobbies category last week ("playmobil egypt" ranked at #54). Other popular products this year include "crayola crayon maker" and "mindflex".

Canadians Hunt for Grey Suede Boots

2009-11-24T18:41:17Z

The search term "grey suede boots" was a Fast Moving Search Term last week in Canada among search terms sending visits to Shopping and Classifieds websites. The term appeared #2 on the Fast Moving Search Terms report and is a good example of an opportunity for Canadian retailers.

The following table shows the top 20 search terms among the 1,691 search terms that contained the word "boots" in the twelve weeks to November 21, 2009. The search term "grey suede boots" appears #15.

Experian Hitwise reports a metric called "Success Rate" which is a measure of how many searchers clicked off of the search engine after performing a search. The term "grey suede boots", has only a 54% Success Rate, meaning that nearly half of searchers were forced to repeat their search in order to find relevant information. Similarly, "moccasin boots" experienced only a 58% Success Rate. Compare this to the #'1 term, "ugg boots" with an 88% Success Rate.

For the high volume terms, Canadian searchers seem to be finding what they are looking for, but for more specific terms, there are ripe opportunities for retailers to attract consumers to their websites through relevant ad copy. Fast moving search term reports and search term variation reports can be an excellent source of ideas for new search terms and can also provide ideas for ad copy.

The cold weather really hit yesterday, in Ottawa at least, and we will no doubt continue to see searches for winter wear continue to rise in the coming weeks.

Sarah Palin Frenzy Picks Up Online

2009-11-24T18:03:10Z

With her new book out, an appearance on Oprah and a controversial photo on the cover of Newsweek, searches for "sarah palin" rocketed last week.

Searches for "sarah palin" increased more than 3 fold last week to account for 0.024% of all US Internet searches. Last week, searches for "sarah palin" didn't reach the levels when she first entered the national stage as John McCain's running mate, but she did make it into the top 100 search terms, ranking #95 among all search terms in the week to 11/21/2009.

Last week there were 1,600 search terms that included the word "palin". While Going Rogue, her new book, and the Newsweek cover dominated media attention, Internet search data reveals that consumer interest was consumed by "hot photos". The #2 search term that included the word "palin" last week was "sarah palin hot photos". Also among the top Search Term Varaitions were searches for her book tour and the Newsweek cover.

Among the top 15 Fast Moving to Google News last week were ""sara palin newsweek coverage" and "sarah palin book tour schedule".

Book sellers capitalized on the frenzy but focussed paid search efforts on book related searches. While 98% of clicks on searches that contained the word "pain" went to organic listings, searches related to the book saw much higher levels of paid clicks. The top search term for the book was "going rogue" with 23% of clicks going to paid listings. Barnes and Nobel was the top recipient of clicks on the term "going rogue" last week. The term "going rogue sarah palin" saw 78% of clicks go to paid listings while "sarah palin book" saw 14% going to paid listings wiht Amazon.com was the #1 recipient for both terms.

Fast moving search term reports can be a great source of insight into the new products and services consumers are searching. Downstream websites reveals the sites visited after those queries allowing firms to benchmark their share of voice on various terms.

Top Canadian Travel Websites

2009-11-16T20:28:33Z

Canada is home to one national airline (Air Canada), a major regional carrier (Westjet), a few low cost carriers and international competition on international routes. One might expect Canadians to head directly to AirCanada.com to make bookings, however, Hitwise data reveal that Canadians continue to compare deals across carriers, in particular using online travel agencies.

Among Travel websites, last week, Expedia.ca and Westjet ranked #1 and #2 in share of Canadian Internet visits. Air Canada and Westjet typically trade off for the #2 spot. The following table shows the top 10 Travel websites (excluding Maps) last week.

Hitwise clicsktream data provides insight into who Air Canada's top competitors are online. The #'1 website visited after AirCanada.com last week was Westjet, attracting 8.83% of downstream visits. Westjet received more than 3x the share of visits compared to Expedia.ca, the next highest competitor. The following chart shows the top 10 downstream Travel websites visited after Air Canada in the week ending November 14th, 2009

Air Canada Vacations is a popular offering by Air Canada, possibly reflecting interest in package holidays, and it appears #3 downstream from Air Canada, after Aeroplan the rewards program offered by Air Canada. Porter, a new discount carrier offering flights within Canada and some US destinations is already appearing at #9 downstream from Air Canada and Air Transat, which offers some overseas flights, is at #10.

Clickstream data can be an excellent source of insight into who your competitors are online - by revealing the competitors that customers turn to for price comparison. As we approach the season of winter getaways, it will be interesting to see how the travel landscape evolves and how some of the low cost carriers will fare.

Also, a reminder that we'll be speaking at the upcoming PhocusWright conference in Orlando. Hope to see you there.

Canadians Searching for Flu Shot Side Effects

2009-11-12T16:15:47Z

Canadians appear to be shifting their focus from researching swine flu and its associated symptoms to researching the vaccine and locations for the shot. While the search term "swine flu symptoms' continues to dominate flu related searches, the share of searches for "swine flu symptoms" declined by 49% last week.

At the same time, a number of search terms that indicate concern over the safety of the vaccine have entered the top Canadian search terms containing the word "flu". For example, last week, the search terms "flu shot side effects" and "sde effects of h1n1 flu shot" joined the top 100 search terms that include the word "flu". The search term "swine flu vaccine ingredients" (also among those top 100) saw searches more than double last week.

The search term "gelsemium" was the #1 fast moving search term last week.Gelsemium is being promoted as a homeopathic cure for the flu.

Despite much hype about vaccine shortages and long waits at clinics, searches for "flu shot locations" and "flu clinics" actually decreased last week. The peak of swine flu season is now expected in late November. It will be interesting to see how Internet searches continue to change over the coming weeks.

Canadian Banks Brand Association

2009-11-04T16:30:12Z

Internet search data can be an excellent input to understand what consumers associate with a brand name. Looking at the words that consumers include with a brand name in a search query provides insight into the products, services and attributes consumers associate wtih that brand. The data, updated weekly is far more timely and cost effective than the traditional phone surveys to measure brand association.

Today, I want to follow up on a post from last week to show what Canadians associate with the brand names of the big banks. The following table shows the top 10 branded search terms for the Big 5 banks in the twelve weeks to October 3, 2009.

It is not surprising that most consumers are searching first for online banking for all of the banks. We tend to use search engines to navigate the web and banking is no exception. There are a few other things of note, however:

- Bank of Montreal's Mastercard appears at #8 among search terms for Bank of Montreal, while credit card searches don't appear among most other bank search terms. Notice also the brand for their Mastercard product, "mosaic mastercard".
- CIBC's credit card, Visa, is also among its top 10 brand searches, again at #8.
- TD Canada Trust's search terms reveal the continued strength of the TD brand, with "td" at #2 while "canada trust" appears at #10.
- Looking beyond the top 10 terms, I found searches for TD Canada Trust Insurance offering, "rbc visa" and "desjardins visa".

You can view last week's post on the online strength of the brands of the Big 5 banks here.

Canadian Banks, Internet Search Data and Brand Strength

2009-10-15T15:41:05Z

Internet search data is an excellent source of insight into what consumers associate with a brand as well as the "top of mindedness" of any particular brand. I did some analysis of the top search terms sending visits to Canadian banks to see how Canadians search for their banks.

The top search term sending Canadian traffic to Banks and Financial Institutions in the 12 weeks rolling to October 3, 2009 was "td canada trust" accounting for 5% of clicks to this industry. A close second, searches for "rbc online banking" accounted for 4.85% of clicks.

But while TD may take the top spot in individual search terms, when I aggregated searches relating to TD Canada Trust, Royal Bank and the other big banks, I found that RBC is actually the most searched for Canadian bank, capturing 26% of branded searches among the top 300 terms sending clicks to Banks and Financial Institutions websites. TD was second capturing 20%. The following pie chart shows the breakdown for the Big 5 plus Desjardins.

All but 10 of the top 300 search terms sending visits to Banks and Financial Institutions websites were branded terms. Most generic search terms related to the Canadian dollar exchange rate and they accounted for less than 1% of clicks.

Also interesting, Capital One's URL, GetMyCard.ca was the #171 search term sending visits to Banks and Financial Institutions. The analyst team at Hitwise has done a bit of work in the past to help brand marketers use internet usage data as a measure of the effectiveness of offline advertising. This is a nice example of how awareness of a particular URL promoted in offline advertising can be measured over time and against peers.

Stay tuned for a follow up post on brand association for Canadian banks as measured by Internet search data.

TD Canada Trust Facebook

2009-10-14T14:36:14Z

As the most trafficked site in Canada, Facebook is inevitably going to appear in the clickstream reports of just about every site in Canada. However, the social network is more prominent than you might expect in clickstream reports for TD Canada Trust. TD Canada Trust had for the past couple of years built up a strong presence on the social network, and the question among many Canadian banks and online marketers is whether the effort has been worth while.

TD Canada Trust's most popular Facebook Group is Money Lounge. It was set up to provide budgeting tools and strategies for students and has amassed an impressive 19,000+ fans through contests and promotions.

Hitwise data reveal that TD Canada Trust is getting more traffic from Facebook than the other banks. Last week, the TD Canada Trust Online Banking website was the #24 downstream website from Facebook and TD Canada Trust was #26. The TD Canada Trust websites were the top commercial websites downstream from Facebook last week. Royal Bank of Canada followed at #29 and eBay Canada at #33.

Facebook is an important source of traffic to TD Canada Trust. It was the #3 source of traffic to the site last week, accounting for 6.66% of visits. Facebook accounted for more than twice the share of upstream visits to TD Canada Trust than Bing and Yahoo! Search Canada combined.

Hat tip to Shane Mullane of Hitwise for the idea for this post.

Stay tuned for more posts to come on the banking category. The next one in the hopper is on the brand strength of Canadian banks online.